


How to never stop being sad: a guide for those who have nothing left

by nobodyhere



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Songfic, angsty murphy, he's just doing his best, mentions of murphy's parents, sorry for putting murphy through this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5828515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nobodyhere/pseuds/nobodyhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murphy fell in love with his own loneliness, and why not? It was all that he had left</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to never stop being sad: a guide for those who have nothing left

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: this is a songfic for dandelion hand's "How to Never Stop Being Sad." The italicized words at the beginning of the paragraphs belong to him; I do not own them. All creds go to him (& u should listen to his music bc he's amazing)

_repeat to yourself that they’re not really gone time has proven that fooling yourself into believing a lie is the most effective way to deal with things you have no control over_

Being alone was no longer just a relative feeling. Loneliness couldn’t be compared to anything in his life anymore, because it was all he had left. The only thing he knew about it was that it was a constant, so he embraced it. Murphy had lost anything that a “normal teenager” would have when he lost everyone that was important to him. Which wasn’t his fault, he reminded himself. He did nothing wrong, nothing, nothing at all. He did … nothing. Murphy would shake his head and throw these thoughts away like crumpled pages of a diary that he wanted to erase. He wanted to forget, and he did. He knew he's forgotten because he would tell himself this. I don't remember them, they don't matter to me, I can't care about them anymore. And besides, it's been far too long for him to still care. So Murphy embraced the loneliness; it was far more constant than love had ever been. 

_keep listening to the mixtapes they made you overanalyse every single word you hear “was this a sign that things were going wrong” no no, you were the one that cared too hard, not them_

There was one pocket in Murphy’s backpack where couple tapes and a Walkman were stuffed. They were they only possession he had kept over the years when everything else had been lost because the tapes had been gifts from them, to show him what survived from Earth. They had all listen to them, dancing and laughing as a warmth had spilled over them and drenched them in love, love, comforting love. Murphy listened to them every week, covering himself in the memories they carried with them. They were the only thing from the past he had that hadn't been lost or blurred by his mind. The lyrics of each song were a part of him and Murphy knew them like he knew the way his hands were never going to stop shaking. Every tempo change, drum beat, every guitar solo, Murphy knew them by heart. He knows there's nothing left to find, but somewhere inside of him there's the hope that these songs will provide the answer to why they're gone and why he was left behind in the dirt. Sometimes the songs will make him mad, mad enough that he had once thrown a tape at the wall of the dropship. It had shattered into pieces, which Murphy had sat and cried angry gasping tears over, fumbling with the tiny pieces of plastic. “I cared so fucking much!” he had screamed at the pieces. “I cared! I fucking cared!” 

_gather up the courage to turn these demons, these constant reminders of your loneliness into nothing more than a bad dream or praying just for one second you could feel the warmth of equally returned love_

He couldn’t escape them and it wasn’t fair. They had left him, they were freed and Murphy wished every single day that he could be free like them. But he’s still alive enough to see them everywhere. Murphy thought that maybe Earth was his escape route, his back door out. He thought maybe they would finally leave him alone, but of course, how could he be so stupid. They were a part of him, stuck in his brain like a song on a constant loop. And it only further reminded him of his loneliness. Earth made it easier to see every fond smile, every shared laugh, every time someone loved. Murphy couldn’t look away from love even though it twisted and burned his eyesight. He wanted to reach out and touch it, to understand why it was so foreign. Some nights when the sky fell darker than usual and nothing seemed real, Murphy would go out into the woods by himself, his hair falling into his eyes and the sound of insects providing him with some company. He would sit at the foot of a tree and just look up. He would stare at the sky, wondering if one day his loneliness would seem as small and distant as the Ark was right now. And for a second, he would believe that he had left them back up in the metal prison in the sky. 

_always talk down on yourself whenever possible my life is shit because i deserve it, right? you must have done something real bad its nearly impossible for you to cry now_

Murphy often wondered if anyone truly deserved anything. Earth was so beautiful, so elegant it felt wrong for them to be there. They were so ugly that they stood out like a twisted scar upon the earth, so how could they possibly feel entitled to this? He deserved nothing the Earth could offer. The more he saw of the Earth, the more he felt mocked by nature. He was so dirty it weighed him down, but everything seemed so pure and enlightened. He felt disgusting just for existing whenever he walked on and destroyed the forest like he was better than it. They did not deserve to live in this world and Murphy couldn’t see how they had been so lucky so far. They don’t deserve any of this, they do not deserve anything. Murphy saw this whenever they cut down a tree, when they killed any animal to eat, when they cleared out a space for them to build their settlement like a tumor on the ground. Murphy believed so hard that they deserved nothing every time he saw the hundred destroy even more of the earth. He believed until he stood, head high above everyone, bruises forming and blood caking over his skin. And when the rope tightened its hold around his neck and his feet swung wildly in empty air, he realized that he was wrong. Everything wrong he had done, every shit decision he had made, it came back to him, and he realized that he did not deserve nothing, but that he deserved this. 

_allow yourself to lose interest in the things you love watch as you begin to take a backseat to the world around you, don’t fight it become a secondary character in your own motion picture_

Nobody knew Murphy, nobody knew anything about him. It was never about him, he was never the protagonist. He stayed in the background and let everyone else become the main characters. Who cares? He would stay gray while everyone else would be smudged with colors. He loved nothing more than his grayscale heart inside his grayscale body that no one ever looked at twice because this way he could never hurt anyone again. 

_but most importantly drown every single one of your feelings in old stolen rum, learn to love the taste of it dripping down your throat find comfort in the warmth coming from your stomach, you’re drinking bottled love now_

Murphy used to hate alcohol. The smell of it, the way it clung to his clothing and stung his nose until his eyes watered. He would retch at the sight of it, but it really wasn’t the liquid that made him sick. It was the memories that came along with it that clung with him more than the smell. He would remember late nights, the cold metal seeping into his knees, the stench of vomit, fluorescent lights burning his eyes. His mom, lying on the ground, her moonshine-soaked brain to heavy to function. Murphy remembers constantly smelling like cleaning fluid from scrubbing vomit off of their floor. He swore to himself that he would never touch a drop of alcohol and he would never end up like his mother, pathetic and unable to get up off the floor. But now, after everything that he’s been through, every time fear and pain had been burned his brain, Murphy realizes why his mother had been so in love with alcohol, why she loved it more than living. It provided him with a warmth down deep, even if it was temporary. He learned to love the way it addled his brain and gave him artificial life for once. 

Murphy embraced the drink even more after the grounders, he realized that he never wanted to put a bottle down anyway. Who cares anymore? He didn’t have to think, and god, what a relief. Thinking, thinking, thinking about them, about how he died for Murphy, about how she hated him in her last moments, about the sick acidic smell of her own puke right before Murphy’s life ended. How they had been such a big figure in his life and overtook every aspect of him, but now they were just silent. They were gone. Fucking gone, and he was still here, and he was so so sad. Murphy was fucking sad, alright, and nothing he did ever got rid of this loneliness eating away at his stupid brain. He was so mad all the time, an apathetic kind of mad, that lived under his skin and itched at him. No one saw his anger, but god, it wanted him to punch something, to hurt something, to kill. No, no, no, nonono he can’t kill. Death was the whole reason for his loneliness, it had ruined his life, he cannot kill again. Murphy hated death, no matter how many times he wished that he was dead, the truth is that he hated it. Murphy paced more frantically at the thought of someone else’s blood staining his hands, the bottles clinked under his feet, oh god, someone’s breath stopping forever because of him, their eyes glazing over, staring at him with fear, his breathing hitched, god make it stop, stopstopstopsto - the sharp sound of smashing glass broke the silence of him room. Murphy stood in one corner, breathing heavily at the pieces of the bottle on the floor. He looked at the damage he had caused and immediately fell onto his knees. He sat down against the wall and just cried. He cried for hours, loudly at first, but then quieter as time passed. After a while, Murphy just sat there with tears staining his cheeks, just thinking about them. He gave a choked laugh, and looked up at the ceiling. Maybe he could find something in the cold metal that had imprisoned him his whole life. He wiped his face with his sleeve and stared out into the room.

“Hi mom. Hi dad,” he whispered. “I was kind of hoping we could talk.”

_you don’t need other people to drive away your loneliness you just needed to find a way to talk to it_


End file.
